


not shy of a spark

by alexxir



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Sex, BDSM, D/s, Gags, Jealously, M/M, Restraints, Wax Play, handjobs, there’s claudeleth here if you squint, “hey felix the whole army can feel you brooding”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27488980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexxir/pseuds/alexxir
Summary: "I have a confession to make, Felix," he said, still a little winded. "I think we share the same problem."Felix is stressed about Sylvain regressing to past habits. Claude offers to wring the worry out of him, quite literally.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Claude von Riegan, Implied Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 7
Kudos: 77





	not shy of a spark

**Author's Note:**

> gonna praise [ru](https://twitter.com/pringIeface?s=09) for this gem of a prompt
> 
> needed a nsfw outlet while I worked on the dimiclaude bb, so throws this at ao3 and runs away again

The offer was placed on the table. 

No strings attached. A way to alleviate the stress of war. There’d be rules and limits set, of course - Claude wouldn’t have it any other way - but it wouldn’t mean anything for their relationship. Just something casual between a commander and a general.

Felix didn't trust it. 

He said as much, to a mirthless laugh. 

"I figured you'd say that,” Claude said, stretching his arms languidly behind his head. “No harm in asking though, right?"

Those green eyes stared him down, the gaze at odds with his relaxed features. Expectant and searching. Felix hated it. 

"Tch."

Not one to indulge in nonsense talk, he had left him then without an answer, tailing back to the training grounds without so much as a goodbye.

Despite his best efforts to ignore it, the offer weighed heavy on his mind. It thrummed in his veins, persistent through a vigorous beating of the courtyard dummies.

 _No strings attached_. 

One particular redhead popped into his head, unbidden. 

_Just casual_. 

He shook his head and sheathed his sword into the hilt.

_Damn Claude._

_Damn him and his games_. 

-x--x-

"What made you ask?" 

The words were almost hissed, and Claude straightened up, but otherwise seemed unfazed by the intrusion. He peered over his paperwork. 

"Well, good evening to you too."

"What did you mean, no strings attached?" Felix held himself tight as a drawstring, fists balled at his side. Claude, on the other hand, stretched casually and leaned back into his chair. 

"Felix, I trust you're aware part of my job is to keep the operations of our army running smoothly. Managing rations, requesting repairs, making sure each territory pulls their weight."

"So?"

"So," Claude continued, placing the quill back into the ink jar carefully, "Gossip doesn't elude me. When there's tension amongst my generals, it's my responsibility to flush it out."

Felix's teeth clenched. "It's none of your business."

Claude sighed. "It, unfortunately, _is_ my business." Before Felix could snipe back, he raised his hand in the air to silence him. "I couldn't give a Dagdan mule about what you do behind closed doors, but if suddenly my two best generals are distracted in skirmishes and one looks about ready to tear into the other at any given moment, it's my duty to do something about it." 

The swordsman crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow pointedly. "So you offered sex."

"Precisely."

Silence hung thick between them. Uncomfortable, Felix shuffled back and forth on his feet, scuffing his soles against the wooden floor. Pointedly refused to meet the challenge in Claude's gaze. 

"What's in it for you."

The question threw Claude off guard. He chuckled a little, and Felix sought a brief moment of satisfaction from it. "Felix, I'm sure I don't need to convince you the benefits of a warm body in a war."

A warm body in a war, huh?

 _C'mon, Fe, it doesn't mean anything!_ _She doesn't mean anything!_

Felix had stormed away from Sylvain then, bile rising up his throat. He had no right to feel ownership over him, but it hurt nonetheless. If only he knew how he felt. If he knew the acrid taste of betrayal. If he knew what it was like to carefully cultivate a foundation of trust in a person to have it crumble down right in front of him.

It doesn't matter? Fine. Sylvain could have a taste of his own bitter medicine. 

"I'll do it." 

"Do what, Felix." Playful and saccharine. Felix's frown depended.

"Bed you."

He wasn't very good at deciphering Claude, but the glint to his smile felt more earnest, then. "Sounds like we have a deal." 

-x--x-

A note shoved under Claude's door. Simple and to the point. A list of things Felix wouldn't do, coaxed out of him by Claude's insistence. _Can't have you not enjoying yourself_. It felt like pulling teeth as he jotted down his limits, not wanting to admit to any weakness, but Claude had promised his discretion. Felix could trust him on that. He couldn't, however, trust him to not wield it against him. 

He didn't wait around to hear Claude pick the letter up.

Preparing for the evening was simple enough. Dinner was a light affair - gratin soup, and some spicy mulled wine to wash it down with. Afterwards, Felix took full advantage of the recently restored sauna, letting the heat melt through his tight, aching muscles and unwinding some of the tension he held there. The bathing suite he moved to was discreet enough, and he scrubbed down in the tub … _quite_ thoroughly. With all the aggression the swordsman usually conducted himself with. Only Felix could be so pissed while touching such a private, sensitive place.

Donning a simple robe and at least two concealed daggers strapped to his thigh, he finally made his way back to Claude's chambers. 

He rapped on the door three times. A beat later, Claude's cheery voice rang out. "Come in!"

Felix hurried to shut the door behind him. When he looked back at Claude, he didn't know what to make of the pool of mixed emotions settling in his stomach. 

Claude had slipped into a simple woven tee, sleeves bunched up at his elbows and the laces at his sternum untied. His pants were equally as loose, a baggy affair that hid what Felix knew were deceptively well-toned thighs. No shoes, no jewelry. Outside of the sauna, it was the least amount of clothing Felix had even seen him in. 

"Thanks for the note, by the way."

Felix snapped up to look Claude in the eyes. "Sure," he grumbled out. 

Claude patted to the edge of the bed he sat on. "Scoot on over," he said. "We can get started now, if you like." 

-x--x-

Felix had trouble letting go. 

This shouldn't have been a surprise to either of the men in the room. But like hell if Felix was going to admit it. 

He jostled in the restraints a little, hissing as Claude ran an oiled palm down the front of his chest. Petting him the same way he'd soothe his wyvern. Felix bit down harder on the cloth between his teeth. 

"Breathe," Claude said. Felix wished that he couldn't out of spite. He mumbled something that suspiciously sounded like "make me." 

"Can do." 

Claude stopped touching him then. Felix watched as he fiddled with the wrist cuffs, testing them for security and making sure they wouldn't come loose from the bedpost. Aside from the cuffs, the rest of him lay stark naked against the sheets. 

Claude stood up. He reached for the lit candle and the owl feather. Felix's eyes tracked his movement as he brought them back to the bedside. 

"I’m going to pour this wax on you,” he said, matter-of-factly. Arm hovering over Felix’s chest, a considerable distance from skin. “But I want you to keep your eyes open.”

Claude waited for a response. Felix nodded. 

“Watch.”

Felix was _unwholly_ prepared for the pain.

The first sting of the wax against his chest was both delicious and unbearable. He thrashed about in his restraints and bit back a yelp. Warmth bloomed from the place of impact, and Felix could only watch on helplessly as the wax cooled and solidified against his skin. 

Claude followed up with a second, a third, a fourth. He bought the candle to hover closer. The fifth drop felt like molten lava.

“Fuck!” he cursed, muffled by the gag.

Felix’s face bloomed a deep shade of red. Exertion, anticipation, the vulnerability of it all, each emotion intermingled and pulled deep from within him. The sixth drop did not come straight away - instead, Claude sat the candle on the bedside table, and picked up the feather instead. He twirled it between his fingers in the same ostentatious way he would with his arrows, and then began to drag the feather down on Felix, from the top of his collarbone to the V of his hips. It wasn’t enough. It was too light. Too distant. 

“Easy now.” Claude replaced the feather with his hands, kneading into the patches of flesh unmarred by the wax. He lifted one hand to drop the gag around Felix’s mouth to his chin. “Tell me what you want.”

The words were ripped from somewhere deep within. “More.”

“More, what?”

His desperation bled into his face, mouth open and only faintly panting. “More wax. I can take it.”

Claude dug his nails into his skin. Felix anchored himself to the pain. It grounded him as Claude’s next words made the hairs on his neck stand up - “Ask me politely.”

It was too easy to lash out. “No.”

A moment of silence passed, but it felt electrified as Felix met Claude’s gaze.

“Are you sure about that?”

Felix looked away. 

“I can wait all night.”

The feather was back now. Claude ran it up and down, swirled it in patterns across Felix’s chest. He didn’t speak up again for some time. Could he sense the war waging in his mind? Trick question - of course he could. He'd always been easily read.

Felix’s next words were very, very quiet. “Please.”

Claude smiled, lifting the feather away again. “We’ll have to work on your volume, but I'll honour your request this time around.”

The long-awaited seventh drop felt bittersweet. Hard earned, yet more painful than those before it, it landed thickly on Felix’s lower stomach. Instead of waiting for it to harden this time, Claude sat the candle inside and began to knead the liquid across his skin. It was almost sensual - that is, until it fully cooled and settled and his skin felt stretched.

Felix was panting now. His head drooped forward, eyes half lidded, watching Claude gear up for an eighth. Claude reached his other hand to lazily palm Felix’s half hard cock. Pleasure and pain in equal measure.

“F-- fuccck.” 

With the wax settled, every jerk of his body, every sudden reaction to Claude’s palming was punctured with its tacky reminder. His body wasn't his anymore. It was claimed. 

“Beautiful.” 

Felix blushed. He couldn’t look Claude in the eye as his tratourious cock twitched at the praise. Claude half laughed, half gasped in his excitement.

Claude slipped his fingers further down. Traced past his perineum, pushing gently on the soft, taut flesh, drawing out a moan from Felix before skimming at the sensitive pucker of his ass.

“Look at you, all pliant for me.” His callouses rubbed against his rim and Felix couldn’t help but keen. The archer continued circling around it lazily, and Felix was reminded of a cat toying with his food as Claude grinned and edged in that little bit closer.

“Do you want me in here?”

“Just - fuuckk - just get on with it.”

“Good manners will go a long way, Felix. Try asking me again.”

 _Fine_.

“Please, Claude.” A beat, and then, “please finger me.”

Claude straightened up, eyes ablaze. His grin went from mischevious to wanting in a flash, and Felix couldn't deny that it was the most earnest expression Claude had worn all night. 

He eased in a finger. Tortuously slow. The oil and his bathing had weakened any sort of resistance, but the brittle edges of Felix's stubbornness was still there to contend with. With deep, shuddering breaths, his muscles loosened up enough to take it down to Claude’s knuckle. The stretch was _intoxicating_. His brain could do nothing but focus on the contact, of the feel of Claude slipping in and out again, wiggling slightly until a second digit could join the fray. 

“Feels, nice,” he stuttered out. “More.”

Claude didn’t snipe back this time. Felix wasn’t sure if Claude was so enamoured by it all, or if it was because he wasn’t paying attention, concentrating on sliding a third finger in before Felix could even finish his sentence. 

The stretch burned this time. It couldn’t come close to the stinging pain of wax - instead, it brought its own flavour of pain, one that took root in his stomach and ebbed away the more he was toyed with. 

“You’re so good, Felix,” Claude all but purred. Felix could feel his fingers hook against his walls, searching. “You think you could take me?”

“Ye- _yes_!” his exclamation was punctured with a gasp. Claude had found the sensitive skin of his prostate. Felix all but watched on helplessly as Claude began to rub him down. The sensation was lightning bolts down his spine, and he arched up in pure, unabashed want. 

“Don’t stop, please, just there-” 

Claude removed his fingers. Felix all but spat at him.

“Why’d you stop?”

Claude shifted back. He gently slid off the bed, and gave Felix a bemused smile. “Give me a minute.” 

Before Felix could complain further, Claude reached down to the waistband of his pants, and Felix immediately understood. The erection that had up until this point strained considerably against his slacks sprang free, to no small sigh of relief from his lover. 

“Besides,” Claude continued, moving back onto the bed and reaching for the jar of oil again, “I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.” 

“You better.”

Claude didn’t grace him with an answer. If anything, his grin widened. He stared down at Felix while he palmed a generous amount of oil down his cock. 

“Ready?”

“Tch. Just shut up and fuck me already.”

Claude chuckled, unfazed. “It would be my pleasure.”

Using one hand to brace against Felix’s thigh, the other holding the base of his cock, Claude inched forward to line himself up. Both of them held their breath. The tension in the air was palpable, like static. Neither of them willing to tear their gaze away on the melding point of their bodies. 

It was _a lot_. Felix wouldn’t flatter his lover by saying he was well endowed, by any means, but Claude was thick, and, well. Sex wasn’t in his regular habits. He forced himself to breathe. Tried to unwind the knot in his stomach. Teeth worried into his lower lip, and he focused on letting him in, just that little bit deeper, inching closer and closer to the base.

“Fuck, Felix.” He blinked. Claude was….blushing? Perhaps flushed was more accurate. Mouth open, forehead slightly crumpled together in concentration. A brief insight into the true Claude that was behind the persona he had performed all night. Felix would have felt flattered, if he could feel anything past the weight of Claude within him.

With a final push forward, Claude had buried himself to the hilt. He stopped, then, temporarily dazed. Felix wasn’t immune, either; he closed his eyes and took a moment to reveal in that deep, aching fullness he granted to him, and only opened them again when Claude spoke.

“Can I move?”

This wasn’t part of any game, and Felix was grateful for it. He shifted a bit. “Give me a moment.” The words lacked Felix’s usual bite.

“Sure.”

He took a few more calming breaths. Wriggled in his restraints, for good measure. He even managed a coy smile, looking back up at Claude with a fire gleaming in his eyes. “Get on it with it, then.”

He was met with a shining gaze and a grin full of stars. “With pleasure.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth before Claude had tightened his grip on Felix’s thigh. His thrusts were short and sharp. His breaths felt ripped from his lungs, abs flexing with the effort of matching Claude's pace. It was driving Felix almost dizzy. The skin on his stomach and chest stung with the hardened stains of wax, and while it wasn’t the blinding, searing pain of before, its memory lingered on while Claude continued to fuck him. 

"You're so tight."

His rhythm picked up, and both of Claude's wide hands pushed on Felix’s inner thighs to force him to bend inward, pressing further and further until he yelped, first with the pain of the stretch, and second with the deepness of Claude's thrusts as the angle drove him past his limits. Felix's body was forced into pilancy. Nowhere for his legs to go, with his arms bound and wrists squirming uselessly against the binds. In a state of not-quite-delirium, he turned his head aside to rest against the pillow, away from that burning emerald gaze, but even this, too, was taken from him as Claude's hand slipped away to grasp at his chin. 

"Look at me. I won't ask again."

Claude's thrusts came to a halt. He couldn't still completely; the heat and grip too difficult to resist, and so he made little grinding motions without pulling out. 

Felix felt three taps on his chin. He blinked. Right. Claude was checking in. Of course he was checking in. A small nod, a pointed swallow. 

He… wanted this, didn't he? In some roundabout, obscured way, because being direct about the desire to have his defences stripped from him just wasn't permissible. The binds had been somewhat easy, the pain surprisingly easier, but this? 

A beat of something raw passed through him. Did Sylvain look his lovers in the eyes when he fucked them? Did he care enough about them to do that? 

He felt the bitter-sweet pang of jealousy in his throat when finally meeting Claude's eyes. 

"You can fuck me harder than that."

Claude half laughed, half moaned. "I could," he began, refusing to pick up the pace, "Or I could keep going like this." The hand that had held his chin trawled down his neck, his sternum. Clawed its way down his stomach, criss-crossing over patches of skin. Felix all but keened as Claude wrapped his hand across his cock. “Ask me politely.”

He arched up in the touch, chasing whatever friction Claude granted him. His grip tightened and Felix yelped.

“Please!” he shouted, ripped straight from his mouth unbidden. 

“Finally.”

Claude was ruthless. Insteading of granting Felix that dual friction he craved, his grip shifted and fingers pressed his erection firmly into his stomach. It was messy, with the efforts of fucking him causing his pressed hand to slip on occasion, and every time his touch resettled on his cock Felix was starkly reminded of being led about on a leash, onto the precipice of a cliff and being denied that final push over the edge. 

“Close,” Claude gasped, speeding up. “Where, _fuck_ , do you want it.”

Felix blinked before he registered. “O-Outside.”

He nodded to show he understood. Slid out with a downright obscene noise. The hand on Felix's thigh moved to his own cock and one, two, three jerks later was all that it took. A full body shudder wracked through him as Claude spilled all over Felix's already dirty chest. 

If Felix was a patient man, he might have waited for his lover to return to his senses. Instead, he pushed his hips against Claude’s palm in a desperate bid for friction, feeling the loss of being full, watching Claude's completion boiling that need in the pit of his stomach. 

Of course, it wasn’t enough. Felix gritted his teeth and winced. Only then did Claude snap back into reality. A breathless chuckle left him, and he met Felix with a lopsided grin and half-lidded eyes. 

“Give me a second.” 

Limbs a little wobbly, he shifted to steady himself, and bought his hand around Felix's cock with more focus, more purpose. It wasn’t perfect by any means. But when his other hand wriggled down to shove three fingers back in his gaping hole, Felix couldn’t think to complain. Couldn’t think at all, really.

“God you’re still so tight,” Claude said, a little breathless. 

Felix’s own breaths hitched into little “ah”s. Claude was searching again, wriggling about and pressing into his inner walls with all the enthusiasm of an orgasm-drunk fool. He had already found it _and_ a rhythm Felix craved, damn him -

He silently screamed, back arched and fighting against the restraints. He was _so close, so close_ , and he had the audacity to stop, yet again yanked from his release.

“Come onnnn,” he slurred, anger blurred into desperation, “Please, I just-”

“-yeah?” A challenge, edged on by the delirious between them, something white-hot and ready to snap, “Keep begging me for Felix, let me hear it-”

“Claude, please, please k-keep movingg _nnnhhh_.”

He jerked him faster now. Felix found himself slurring and hiccuping left and right, forcibly pulled into a daze of pleasure and pain, and for the first time that night, the wetness in his eyes shone and slipped down his sweat-glistened cheeks.

Fully incoherent, he rutted into Claude’s hands in feverous little motions. Whines spilled forth from his lips and his eyes screwed shut, letting himself be taken to the cliff’s edge again, and where he expected to be denied once again, muscles bracing for the impact, Claude didn't relent this time. 

“Show me, Felix… paint that pretty chest of yours.”

The release felt like a brand. Searing and sudden. He convulsed, and then shuttered. His release left him in ribbons, coating the existing mess on his stomach and all over Claude’s fingers.

-x--x-

"So." 

His inquisitive tone wasn't subtle. Claude turned to face him while cleaning up the last of the wax. Felix's grimace deepened. 

"You and Sylvain." 

Despite the light way their names were spoken, the weighted meaning of it was hard to ignore.

Pre-fucked Felix would've refused. Post-fucked sighed instead. 

"It's complicated."

Claude dropped the wet rag back into the bucket beside the bed, reaching for the dry one to wipe Felix down with. When Felix sensed he wasn't going to say anything, he continued on. 

"He…. you knew how he was, back in school. The 'cohort's whore'." Even the memory of it had Felix scowling. "He shrugged us off every time we bought it up." He glanced to the side, unable to meet Claude's inquisitive glance. "We couldn't snap him out of it."

"Both the sex and the self loathing?" 

Felix nodded, looking back. "War made him forget, I think. And now…" he bunched his hands into fists before loosening them again, stretching out his fingers experimentally. "I don't know. He's being an idiot."

Something in Claude's expression shifted. He glanced to the side, lost in thought. 

“War brings out the worst in us.”

Felix snorted. “Doesn’t excuse it.”

“Never said it did.”

For a moment, the only sounds between them were the subtle drag of cloth against skin, and Felix’s deep, pointed breaths. 

“Have you told him how you feel about it?”

If Claude doubted Felix’s scowl could intensify any further, he would’ve been mistaken.

“Of course I have. Told him to cut it out.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Claude cast the cloth aside, satisfied Felix was well and truly clean. He moved onto the restraints next, giving Felix the luxury of not making eye contact to prepare for his next words. “Have you told him how you feel about _him_?”

As predicted, Claude felt Felix go tight as a bowstring. 

“It’s not like that,” he mumbled. Claude hummed a noise of doubt, easing up the bands around Felix’s wrist. “S’not important.”

Claude sighed. The restraints came free with a clink, and he sat them aside. He waited for Felix to adjust to the feeling in his arms again, stretching them for good measure, and turned to him.

“Talk to Sylvain, Felix. I think - I think you’d be surprised.”

Felix’s trend of mumbling didn’t let Claude catch his response, but he didn’t _really_ need to hear the actual words. An open book was an open book, after all.

“I meant it. I’m happy to do this again,” Claude gesticulated with a wave, “but that’s not going to solve the problem in the long run, isn't it?” He nudged Felix’s side, indicated for him to shuffle over. When Felix complied, he let out the longest of sighs. “If you won’t do it for your own wellbeing, would you do it for me?”

Felix cracked a rare smile. “Ask me politely.”

“Oh, to have my own words thrown against me!” Claude wheezed, feigning hurt. He nudged a playful elbow to his side. "In all seriousness, though. Your pining isn't one sided."

"I'm not _pining_ ," Felix spat, although with a little less frustration than normal. "He's a selfish dastard."

"Mmm."

"Who's milling about to break hearts in the middle of a war."

“Indeed."

"He's not even focused anymore, he keeps drifting off in our sparring matches- stop looking at me like that!" 

Claude laughed, full bodied and genuine. Felix couldn't help but crack a smile - the mirth was infectious. 

"I have a confession to make, Felix," he said, still a little winded. "I think we share the same problem."

Felix cocked his head to one side. "What does _that_ mean?"

He watched as Claude sighed and flopped back on the bed, arms folded beneath him. 

"I've been losing focus lately. Not a great look for a leader, mind you. I doubt anybody’s noticed, but I have an awful feeling it’s gonna catch up to me." He jutted up his chin thoughtfully. "So I thought, maybe it’s just a physical thing? If I go and make the bed, so to speak…”

Felix’s eyes went wide before they narrowed at record speed. “So this _was_ a scheme of yours. Tch.”

“Not exactly,” Claude answered with a grin. “More like… an experiment.”

His bedpal grunted before turning on his side to face him. “So?” A prompt to continue, not an accusation. Not that Felix’s tone of voice ever made that distinction easy.

“You’re good. But not what I need right now. Call it a hunch of mine, but deep down, you’re thinking the same.”

The question was on the tip of Felix’s lips before he realised. He didn’t need confirmation of the person who lingered in Claude’s thoughts. Every general and their retinue could see the infatuation between them; the lingering looks, fleeting touches, the suggestive tension one could catch a battlefield away, even as the two of them faced forward to lead them on. 

“You - you haven’t -”

“No. I haven’t. So - what do you say? Think we can make another deal, then?”

-x--x-

Neither of them lasted a full day before confessing.


End file.
